Muni chief argues upcoming service frequency cuts are targeted

In just over a week, Muni will cut bus frequencies across the system by perhaps the greatest amount in its history. Roughly 313,000 service hours will be cut out of the schedule, leaving riders to wait an average of 10 percent longer for buses and trains. Depending on the line and the time of day, riders could see increased waits of one to ten minutes for each bus, with fifteen extra minutes between some overnight bus lines.

Still, Muni says the cuts, which its board approved to cover budget deficits this year and in the next two, are not random or across the board. In an interview with Streetsblog, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Executive Director Nat Ford, who oversees Muni, stressed that the cuts would be focused on the least-crowded lines and times of day, while many of the most-used lines would be spared at peak hours.

"It is less frequent service that’s out there," Ford acknowledged, but, he said, "We didn’t just take a hatchet to the system and lop 10 percent off of every route. We used the [Transit Effectiveness Project] information to make informed decisions. We were able to look at the system surgically."

Muni’s most popular lines are generally spared from huge frequency changes, in part because even minor changes will undoubtedly add to crowding on lines that are already packed. For instance, the Stockton corridor, one of Muni’s most heavily traveled, won’t see any headway changes.